Croatia Go To The Polls On Sunday

Croatia will go to the polls this Sunday (14 April) when it holds its first-ever European Parliament elections. The nation will elect 12 MEP’s who will represent Croatia in Brussels for one year, before the number of MEP’s gets cut to 11 after the next elections in 2014.

Voters for the first time in Croatia will be able to vote for individual candidates instead of party lists, a system which is also expected to be applied to local elections in future in Croatia.

President of the leading opposition party the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) says Croatia’s representatives in Brussels need to be “true Croats” who are “patriotic”, eluding to the current government whom they criticise for not having Croatia’s interests at heart.

“Croatia did not deserve a government that doesn’t care about the homeland, the war veterans don’t deserve that, that is not what 15,000 gave up their lives for,” said HDZ President Tomislav Karamarko at a pre-election rally in Split.

Croats will elect its European MEP’s from 336 candidates from 40 political parties. 61% of candidates on the list are men with the average age of the candidates being 46. The youngest candidate is 22-years-old and the oldest is 80-years-old.